About a decade ago, détente defined the DRTV
industry. There was an unspoken policy that if a
player discovered a hit, none of its major rivals
would stoop to the behavior that had once produced the deplorable “knockoff.” During this honorable age, I often witnessed rivals helping each
other achieve maximum retail distribution.

Then, the industry changed. If I recall correct-ly, it began with a sibling rivalry and spun out fromthere. Around 2012, two-way competitions (a.k.a.,“duels”) began to spring up again. This quicklyaccelerated past three-way battles to the four-waymelee and beyond. In 2017, the year that “DRTVbrand” stopped being an oxymoron (Response,December), we witnessed brand-extension duelsby up to three players that produced as many as

10 competing products at the same time.

Such is the case with tactical products —
now with a twist. What started out as a line of
lighting gadgets has grown well beyond that
category. The latest spinoff is tactical sunglasses.

It was Emson that first identified the opportunity,
launching TacGlasses* last May. TELEBrands
followed three months later with Sniper Vision.

An apparent false start, the project recentlyrelaunched under the name Battle Vision, featur-ing a commercial even more like the TacGlassesspot than before. In the interim, Ideavillage alsomade its move, launching HD Vision Special Opsin the hopes that a category it once had all to itselfwon’t now slip from its grasp.

The result: at press time, all three brands
were in the top 20 on the DRMetrix chart – with
Emson and Ideavillage in the top five. Many are
wondering how this sort of monster competition
can possibly be sustainable. From what I understand, it can’t. That’s why I’m optimistic that at
some point sanity will reassert itself and we’ll
cycle back to “gentleman’s rules” once again.

* Editor’s note: the author is part of the team that brought
TacGlasses to market and also wrote/developed the TacGlasses
commercial.